Phlank's music can be heard at soundcloud.com/phlank, or at the Illuminate: Sensory Arts Festival 2015 at 8 p.m. on April 25 at Be Here Now.
“Deep” is a word used to describe multiple facets of a local dubstep DJ's musicianship.
Colin “Phlank” Ledbetter considers himself a “deep dubstep” producer. He makes prodigious use of deep, low frequencies. Phlank said that bringing music to the people is a calling.
“As a performer, it's your responsibility to take [the] vibes and move them in a direction that the people will love,” Ledbetter, a junior computer science major, said. ”Not only are you getting that atmosphere, but you're also fulfilling some type of inner-calling of wanting to bring what you love to everyone else.”
Every Wednesday and Sunday, Phlank performs online from his bedroom via a website called ClouwdNine. As a DJ, Phlank chooses the tracks that he thinks his audience will enjoy. He uses his turntable-mixer and keyboard to remix the tracks with audio effects and add effects called “dub sirens,” which fill in the music to “hype it up.”
Phlank joined Ball State's EDM club last semester. The founder of the club, Andrew August, watched Phlank's first "field-test" show at DWNTWN's Art Walk.
Despite playing for four hours straight, August said Phlank performed with an enthusiasm he had never seen before.
"[Phlank has] continually shown initiative in taking opportunities to improve his sound and performance," August said.
As a member of EDM club, Phlank has been afforded several live show experiences, his favorite being one held Dec. 14, 2014, at Be Here Now.
“I would rate that as probably the best night of my life. It is one thing being in the crowd experiencing it, but it's a totally different thing being the person controlling the experience,” he said. “It's just sick.”
Phlank's first yearnings to be an electronic music producer, and an idea for a name, came to him in high school, when he listened to artists like Mala, a leading founder of the dubstep genre, and trance artists Armin van Buuren and Cosmic Gate.
He began by Googling the query, “how do I produce music,” which led to research on several softwares. He settled on Reason, a music editing program.
To create his name, Phlank looked to the battle strategy game Starcraft. Phlank took the tactical maneuver “flank” and replaced the "f" with a “ph." He hasn't seriously considered changing the name since.
Going into college, Phlank discovered an interest in DJing as well, not just producing tracks.
“My first show, rave, whatever you want to call it, was Excision in Indy last year,” he said. “This wasn't the dubstep I was listening to, but still, nevertheless, feeling the vibration of the sound … on that scale was like, 'I need to keep doing this; this is amazing, and I haven't even tapped the surface.'”
The experience triggered a shift in direction for Phlank, leaving him with the determination to take the show's atmosphere and put it into his own music.
He says he's not the typical musician in that most “have this emotion and need to express it through music."
He admits producing is something he does for fun, sometimes without “putting emotional emphasis towards it.” But that's OK, he said: the music brings the emotion out of him and brings people together to “share the same moment."
Phlank has a regimen of mixing at least a little every day. If nothing else, he perfects something he's been working on.
Phlank has been accepted by Propellerhead, the creators of his choice of software, to develop extensions for their program Reason, though he doubts he'll ever sell the extensions instead of giving them away.
“At some point, I do want to release my music through some form that I can be paid money for, but at the same time I never want this to become my job,” he said. “I feel like if it does, I'll have to owe people things.”
For the time being, Ledbetter has found his niche as dubstep DJ and producer Phlank, equipped with a pair of KRK speakers and a heavy passion for deep sounds.
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